Lennon–McCartney

Lennon–McCartney (also written Lennon/McCartney and occasionally known as McCartney–Lennon) was the rock music songwriting partnership between English musicians John Lennon (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) and Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) of the Beatles. It is one of the best known and most successful musical collaborations in history. Between 1962 and 1969, the partnership published approximately 180 jointly credited songs, of which the vast majority were recorded by the Beatles, forming the bulk of their catalogue.

Unlike many songwriting partnerships that comprise separate lyricist and composer,[1] both Lennon and McCartney wrote words and music. Sometimes, especially early on, they would collaborate extensively when writing songs, working "nose to nose and eyeball to eyeball".[2] Later, it became more common for one of the two credited authors to write all or most of a song with limited input from the other.

"He provided a lightness, an optimism, while I would always go for the sadness, the discords, the bluesy notes", John Lennon explained in his 1980 Playboy interviews.

By an agreement made before the Beatles became famous, Lennon and McCartney were credited equally with songs that either one of them wrote while their partnership lasted. Lennon–McCartney compositions have been the subject of numerous cover versions. According to Guinness World Records, "Yesterday" has been recorded by more artists than any other song.[3]

The pair met at the local church fete, where Lennon was playing with his skiffle group, the Quarrymen. Paul, brought along by a mutual friend, Ivan Vaughan, impressed Lennon with his ability on the guitar and his version of Eddie Cochran's '20 Flight Rock'. Soon after, John Lennon asked McCartney if he would join the Quarrymen. McCartney accepted, and there the legacy was born.[7][8]

Although Lennon and McCartney often wrote independently—and many Beatles songs are primarily the work of one or the other—it was rare that a song would be without some input from both writers. In many instances, one writer would sketch an idea or a song fragment and take it to the other to finish or improve; in some cases, two incomplete songs or song ideas that each had worked on individually would be combined into a complete song. Often one of the pair would add a middle eight or bridge section to the other's verse and chorus.[9] Lennon called it "Writing eyeball-to-eyeball",[9] and "Playing into each other's noses".[10] This approach of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting team—with elements of competitiveness and mutual inspiration as well as straightforward collaboration and creative merging of musical ideas—is often cited as a key reason for the Beatles' innovation and popular success.

As time went on, the songs increasingly became the work of one writer or the other, often with the partner offering up only a few words or an alternative chord. "A Day in the Life" is a notable and well-known example of a later Beatles song that includes substantial contributions by both Lennon and McCartney, where a separate song fragment by McCartney ("Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head ...") was used to flesh out the middle of Lennon's composition ("I read the news today, oh boy ..."). "Hey Jude" is another example of a later McCartney song that had input from Lennon: while auditioning the song for Lennon, when McCartney came to the lyric "the movement you need is on your shoulder," McCartney assured Lennon that he would change the line—which McCartney felt was nonsensical—as soon as he could come up with a better lyric. Lennon advised McCartney to leave that line alone, saying it was one of the strongest in the song.[11]

he provided a lightness, an optimism, while I would always go for the sadness, the discords, the bluesy notes. There was a period when I thought I didn't write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock 'n' roll. But, of course, when I think of some of my own songs—"In My Life", or some of the early stuff, "This Boy"—I was writing melody with the best of them.[12]

However, Lennon said the main intention of the Beatles' music was to communicate, and that, to this effect, he and McCartney had a shared purpose. The book Help! 50 Songwriting, Recording and Career Tips Used by the Beatles points out that at least half of all Lennon–McCartney lyrics have the words "you" and/or "your" in the first line.[13]

The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership makes up the majority of the Beatles' catalogue. The first two UK studio albums included twelve cover tunes and fifteen Lennon–McCartney songs,[14][15] with one track ("Don't Bother Me") credited to George Harrison.[15] Their third UK album, A Hard Day's Night, is made up entirely of Lennon–McCartney compositions.[16] The next album released, Beatles for Sale, included six covers and eight Lennon–McCartney originals.[17] The subsequent release, Help!, had two covers and two Harrison compositions along with ten Lennon–McCartney tracks and was the last Beatles album to feature a cover until Let It Be, which featured an arrangement of the traditional Liverpool folk song "Maggie Mae". All other songs released on studio albums by the band after Help! were original compositions, with George Harrison contributing between one and four songs on each record, Ringo Starr writing two songs ("Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden") and being given joint credit with Lennon and McCartney for a third ("What Goes On"), and a fourth and fifth joint credit on "Flying" and "Dig It" (both songs credited to all four Beatles), and the rest of the catalogue coming from Lennon and McCartney.

Lennon and McCartney gave songs to Starr to sing, and to Harrison before he started writing his own material. As for the songs they kept for themselves, each partner mostly sang his own composition, often with the other providing harmonies, or they shared lead vocal. If each contributed a fragment to make a whole song, he might sing his portion (see "I've Got a Feeling" and "A Day in the Life"). "Every Little Thing" is a rare example of a Lennon–McCartney composition written by one member of the partnership (McCartney) and sung by the other (Lennon).[18]

McCartney and Lennon met in July 1957 as teenagers and began writing songs together;[19] they agreed that all songs written by them (whether individually or jointly) should be credited to both of them.[19] The precise date of the agreement is unknown; however, Lennon spoke in 1980 of an informal agreement between him and McCartney made "when we were fifteen or sixteen".[20] Two songs written (primarily by Lennon) in 1957, "Hello Little Girl" and "One After 909", were credited to the partnership when published in the following decade.[21] The earliest Beatles recording credited to Lennon–McCartney to be officially released is "You'll Be Mine", recorded at home in 1960 and included on Anthology 1 35 years later.[22]

However, some other compositions from the band's early years are not credited to the partnership. "In Spite of All the Danger", a 1958 composition that the band (then the Quarrymen) paid to record to disc, is attributed to McCartney and George Harrison. "Cayenne", recorded at the same time as "You'll Be Mine", is a solo McCartney composition. "Cry for a Shadow", recorded during the Beatles' sessions with Tony Sheridan in June 1961, was written by Lennon and Harrison.

By 1962, the joint credit agreement was in effect. From the time of the Beatles' first A&R audition in January that year, until Lennon's announcement in September 1969 that he was leaving the band, virtually all songs by McCartney or Lennon were published with joint credit. The only exceptions were a handful of the McCartney compositions released by other artists (viz. "Woman" by Peter and Gordon in 1966, "Cat Call" by Chris Barber in 1967, and "Penina" by Carlos Mendes in 1969).

After the partnership had ended, Lennon and McCartney each gave account of their individual contribution to each jointly credited song. In only five known cases is there a substantial difference between their recollections:

"Help!" has been universally recognized as solely a Lennon-penned composition. However, Paul McCartney claims to have helped on the "countermelody", estimating the song as "70–30" to Lennon.[23][24][25] During an interview with Playboy in 1984, McCartney stated that "John and I wrote it at his house in Weybridge for the film".[25]

McCartney said that he wrote "Eleanor Rigby" on a piano in the Ashers' music room in Wimpole Street,[28] and later played it to Donovan before it was finished—a claim which Donovan confirmed.[29] Lennon said, in 1972, that he wrote 70 percent of the "Eleanor Rigby" lyrics,[30] but Pete Shotton, Lennon's childhood friend, remembered Lennon's contribution as being "absolutely nil".[31]

Whilst Lennon said that McCartney's contribution to "Ticket to Ride" was limited to "the way Ringo played the drums,"[32] McCartney said "we sat down and wrote it together ... give him 60 percent of it."[33]

The song "And Your Bird Can Sing" is supposedly primarily by John Lennon, but Paul McCartney claims to have helped on the lyric, estimating the song as "80–20" to Lennon.[34]

In October 1962, the Beatles released their first single in the UK, "Love Me Do", credited to "Lennon–McCartney". However, on their next three releases (viz. the single "Please Please Me", the Please Please Me LP, and the single "From Me to You"), the credit was given as "McCartney–Lennon".[35] With the "She Loves You" single, released in August 1963, the credit reverted to "Lennon–McCartney", and all subsequent official Beatles singles and albums list "Lennon–McCartney" (UK) or "J. Lennon/​P. McCartney" (US) as the author of songs written by the two.

In 1976 McCartney's band Wings released their live album Wings over America with songwriting credits for five Beatles songs reversed to place McCartney's name first. Neither Lennon nor Yoko Ono publicly "voiced a word of disapproval about it".[19] Many years after Lennon's death however, in the late 1990s, McCartney and Ono became involved in a dispute over the credit order.[36] McCartney's 2002 live album, Back in the U.S., also used the credit "Paul McCartney and John Lennon" for all of the Beatles songs.[37] When Ono objected to McCartney's request for the reversed credit to be used for the song "Yesterday", McCartney said that he and Lennon had agreed in the past that the credits could be reversed, if either of them wanted to, on any future releases. Later, however, he relented, saying, "I'm happy with the way it is and always has been. Lennon and McCartney is still the rock 'n' roll trademark I'm proud to be a part of—in the order it has always been."[36] An in-depth analysis of the legal issues is the subject of a 66-page Pepperdine Law Review article from 2006.[38]

Several songs credited to Lennon–McCartney were originally released by artists other than the Beatles, especially those managed by Brian Epstein. Recording a Lennon–McCartney song helped launch new artists' careers. Many of the recordings below were included on the 1979 compilation album The Songs Lennon and McCartney Gave Away.[40] Beatles versions of some of these were recorded; some were not released until after their split, on compilations such as Live at the BBC (1993) and The Beatles Anthology (1995–96).

Although composed alone by Lennon, McCartney was credited as co-composer on the single appearance and on Lennon's compilation albums Shaved Fish and The John Lennon Collection. The credit was revised in the 1990s to cite only Lennon.

Note that several songs released during this period were credited solely to Paul McCartney:

The following compositions are believed to have been written by Lennon and McCartney, but never officially released by The Beatles or any other artist. Many have appeared on Beatles bootlegs; a notable exception being "Carnival of Light".[44] The list of unreleased songs includes some of the earliest Lennon–McCartney joint works dating back to The Quarrymen, the group which evolved into the Beatles.[45] Several of these songs were revisited during the Get Back sessions of early 1969.[46]

Improvised studio jam satirising Enoch Powell's claim in a 1968 speech that immigration into the UK would cause a race war. Sung by McCartney during the Get Back sessions of 9 January 1969.[51][65][66]